About the Author

Andrew Solomon is a professor of psychology at Columbia University, president of PEN American Center, and a regular contributor to The New Yorker, NPR, and The New York Times Magazine. A lecturer and activist, he is the author of Far and Away: Essays from the Brink of Change: Seven Continents, Twenty-Five Years; the National Book Critics Circle Award-winner Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity, which has won thirty additional national awards; and The Noonday Demon; An Atlas of Depression, which won the 2001 National Book Award, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and has been published in twenty-four languages. He has also written a novel, A Stone Boat, which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times First Fiction Award and The Irony Tower: Soviet Artists in a Time of Glasnost. His TED talks have been viewed over ten million times. He lives in New York and London and is a dual national. For more information, visit the author's website at AndrewSolomon.com.

Reviews

"Far from the Tree is a landmark, revolutionary book. It frames an area of inquiry--difference between parents and children--that many of us have experienced in our own lives without ever considering it as a phenomenon. Andrew Solomon plumbs his topic thoroughly, humanely, and in a compulsively readable style that makes the book as entertaining as it is illuminating."--Jennifer Egan, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Visit from the Goon Squad

"Andrew Solomon has written a brave and ambitious work, bringing together science, culture and a powerful empathy. Solomon tells us that we have more in common with each other--even with those who seem anything but normal--than we would ever have imagined."----Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink and The Tipping Point

"In Far from the Tree, Andrew Solomon reminds us that nothing is more powerful in a child's development than the love of a parent. This remarkable new book introduces us to mothers and fathers across America--many in circumstances the rest of us can hardly imagine--who are making their children feel special, no matter what challenges come their way."--President Bill Clinton

"Solomon, a highly original student of human behavior, has written an intellectual history that lays the foundation for a 21st century Psychological Bill of Rights. In addition to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness on the basis of race and religion, this Bill extends inalienable rights of psychological acceptance to people on the basis of their identity. He provides us with an unrivalled educational experience about identity groups in our society, an experience that is filled with insight, empathy and intelligence. We also discover the redefining, self-restructuring nature that caring for a child produces in parents, no matter how unusual or disabled the child is. Reading Far from the Tree is a mind-opening experience."--Eric Kandel, author of The Age of Insight and winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

"Far from the Tree is fundamentally about the bonds and burdens of family, and it's a huge valentine to those who embrace the challenge of raising children who are in some way not what they had hoped for."--Virginia Vitzthum "ELLE"

"[Far from the Tree] is a masterpiece of non-fiction, the culmination of a decade's worth of research and writing, and it should be required reading for psychologists, teachers, and above all, parents...A bold and unambiguous call to redefine how we view difference...A stunning work of scholarship and compassion."--Carmela Ciuraru "USA Today"

"Masterfully written and brilliantly researched...Far from the Tree stands apart from the countless memoirs and manuals about special needs parenting published in the last couple of decades."--Tina Calabro "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette"

"Solomon is a superb writer...[Far from the Tree] is the author's "Song of Myself," a book containing multitudes. It is a gorgeous, necessary, ambitious book."--George Estreich "The Oregonian"